Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007)

[Matt]

Anyone else remember Goldorak (aka UFO Robo Grendizer) - who was the transformer cartoon robot for my generation? He had gold horns and an enormous codpiece. Which is odd, for a robot. I loved that big guy.

He was one of the Shogun Warriors, of which I owned several. Mazinger Z (a.k.a. Mazinga a.k.a. Great Mazinga) was my favorite, followed closely by Raydeen (a.k.a. Brave Raideen).

[Kinsayder]

"Mazinger Z was also the first show to feature a female robot (Aphrodite A, which was piloted by Sayaka Yumi and is remembered for its missile-launching breasts)..."

Now that's one I don't remember.

[jbeall]

"Mazinger Z was also the first show to feature a female robot (Aphrodite A, which was piloted by Sayaka Yumi and is remembered for its missile-launching breasts)..."

Now that's one I don't remember.

Mazinger Z was shown in the U.S. as "Tranzor Z." I definitely remember Aphrodite A; biggest turn-on of the first ten or so years of my life!!

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight (Mountain Dew) and I have to say (Chevrolet Camaro) that for a brainless, summer blockbuster (XBox 360), this about as good as they come (Porsche). The plot is barely there (iPod), the emotional stuff terrible (Nokia), but Bay delivers where it counts (KPMG). The special effects and action sequences (Deloitte & Touche) are great and Shia LeBoeuf is a fun lead (iMac). Like in Disturbia, his charm really elevates an otherwise (Hummer) tedious script. I think the kid actually does have a great future (Pontiac Solstice), and I really enjoy his onscreen presence.

It's not as good as The Rock, and I could've done without the jive-talking Transformer, but lots of shit blew up real good and robots smashed each other to smithereens. I got what I paid for.

Btw, I am the only one who thinks Megan Fox is another average, tanned, California girl in a pushup bra? She didn't really do that much for me.

[Cinesimilitude]

Btw, am I the only one who thinks Megan Fox is another average, tanned, California girl in a pushup bra? She didn't really do that much for me.

I hope not, the less competition the better.

[The Invunche]

Can you compete with this?

[Antoine Doinel]

Btw, am I the only one who thinks Megan Fox is another average, tanned, California girl in a pushup bra? She didn't really do that much for me.

I hope not, the less competition the better.

She's all yours

But I think you need to get out of the Prairies and come down to Montreal for a week during the summer. I guarantee all you'll need to do is walk for a couple blocks downtown and Megan Fox will soon be a distant memory

[Gregory]

I never would have thought there'd be the slightest chance I'd ever see this but during a stay in Venezuela I couldn't pass up the experience of something like this shown in a packed theater in an upscale Caracas shopping mall. It helped that the tickets only cost me around $2. I expected people would absolutely love it, and they did.
As a small bit of context, a great many Caraqueños seem to have a strong penchant for things mechanical and technological. For example, the Metro system is a great source of local pride, but that's nothing compared to the love for automobiles. Cars have been selling extremely fast here -- so fast that the city's transport infrastructure can't keep up, nor can the capacity to refine gasoline, which is the cheapest in the world here. So I wanted to see what people would think of all the car chases, the enormous robots, etc.
Many people around me thought this film reached entirely new levels of awesomeness, and the people I saw walking out at the end had an expression of almost weariness from so much joy and amazement. Scanning this thread, I think it's safe to say that some viewers in the U.S. go to these movies ready to take them with a huge grain of salt, but here I didn't sense any irony in the pleasure from this film. Age probably has something to do with this. Venezuelans are a very young population, with a sizeable majority of the people in the country under the age of 30 (as was the overwhelming majority of those at the theater). Anyway, I didn't hear a single groan or laugh at moments that weren't intended to be funny, not even in the corniest moments such as the autobot narration at the end of the film. There was no shortage of uproarious laughter at other times. They loved seeing the old woman give Bernie Mac the finger, the fat guy jumping through the sliding glass door and then going into the swimming pool, and even the slightly less fat guy eating the entire plate of donuts. (Interesting racial continuity there.) The urination gags didn't seem to get quite the same laughs.
I thought some might find this interesting in some way. Although the movie seems to be doing pretty well here, this audience is of course hardly a representative sampling of the city's population.
As for my own reaction to the film, I thought it was a boring, hackneyed embarassment that didn't even meet my already low expectations from having borrowed The Rock DVD from the library years ago (trying to give everything in the Criterion Collection a fair chance at least once -- perhaps still a good general rule if one is borrowing or renting). But I know there are members here who will defend Bay to the death, so there's no purpose in arguing the point. The main thing I did enjoy about it was the strangeness of hearing the transformers' dialog, especially Megatron's, in Spanish.
EDIT: fixed garbled apostrophes, because apparently I have nothing better to do.

[Antoine Doinel]

The film is being re-released in IMAX on September 21 with extra footage (and I would imagine more product placement as well).

[exte]

The film is being re-released in IMAX on September 21 with extra footage (and I would imagine more product placement as well).

Thanks! I missed this in theaters and it's a great way of finally seeing it!

[Gregory]

Michael Bay's note to projectionists

[flyonthewall2983]

Good to know he's supporting gay marriage in Oregon.

[Gregory]

Link now fixed. I hate it when I hit the keyboard shortcut for copy and it doesn't take, thus allowing me to paste in the last thing I'd copied.
Anyway, I thought this might have some relevance for the uncertain future of 3D.

[dx23]

Bay needs to understand that some of the projectionists are told by their bosses to use other settings because they believe it will give more life to the equipment.

[knives]

You didn't bring this up when Malick was doing the same thing. I'm glad Bay is at least trying to give the appearance of caring even if he phrases it in the most infuriating way possible.

[swo17]

We have a thread for Transformers?

[matrixschmatrix]

You didn't bring this up when Malick was doing the same thing. I'm glad Bay is at least trying to give the appearance of caring even if he phrases it in the most infuriating way possible.

Honestly, I think he does care, which just makes it sadder. Transformers is exactly the product he wants it to be, from deep in his soul.

[knives]

I agree that he cares, but I think the reason why he cares has more to do with audience reaction than how it will help the product.

[Tom Hagen]

We have a thread for Transformers?

And it's four pages long!

[knives]

And it's mostly positive. Alan Tudyk should know better. Just found this and I suppose all of that should be expected.

[John Cope]

In spite of Bay’s claims otherwise, the “dorky humour” of The Revenge Of The Fallen returns, with the directors assertion that we’d seen the back of Witwicky’s dreaded parents, perhaps the ultimate comedy vacuum of the 21st Century cinema, not ringing true (if anything they actually seem to feature in this film more than prominently than the previous one).

FWIW, I'm actually very glad to hear this. I too had been under the impression that Bay was going to attempt to expunge this element but it's encouraging (to me) to hear that he "learnt nothing" and did not capitulate to self-appointed tastemakers.

The fact that this whole picture sounds like an exercise in excess (even Bay's challenge to himself) hardly puts me off. It's what I want to see him do. It's what he's here to do. It defiantly cannot be defended intellectually. It really is all about sensory experience (the imperialism of Hollywood if you will). This is, if the pattern holds, unlikely to invite much in the way of apologists for its "jingoism", "xenophobia", etc. But Bay's absolute, almost sociopathically exuberant, disregard for any attempt at qualification or justification or hedging his bets has a certain very real admirable essence for me. All stops pulled. Someone should be dedicating themselves to that. Should such dedication and such money (!) be better directed? Well, to me if that's a question it's also a laugh. It's just so totally beside the point. This is what it is--a diagnosis of a time and a temperament and an unabashed drive to entertain (Bay's self one suspects as much as any of us). Sometimes, maybe even often, it's this sheer, even megalomaniacal bent that captivates and "entertains " me.

[matrixschmatrix]

I don't know, I think he's probably defensible on some aesthetic level that doesn't interest me, but I really would prefer it if blockbusters didn't keep perpetuating gay jokes and offensive racial portraits- it's sort of the ultimate bullying, a $200 million dollar inescapable juggernaut targeting little kids, but excluding and harassing the outsiders. The America-Fuck-Yeah stuff is bad enough, but that's probably not going to have direct consequences among the target audience- gay jokes do.

[aox]

Projectionists Strike Back! by Carl FAKE

[tarpilot]

You know the Oscars?...Movies like that.

Goooooodnight

[domino harvey]

Great closing line to Ebert's review of the latest Transformers movie:

One special effect happens, and then another special effect happens, and we are expected to be grateful that we have seen two special effects.